Saturday, 30 January 2010

The mother of Mahmud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhuh, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing holds his picture at her home in the northern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Jabalia. Mahmud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhuh died in Dubai, on the 20th of January under suspicious circumstances. Jabalia, Gaza Strip, Palestine Territory. 28/01/2010.

The Islamist Hamas movement blamed Israel for Mabhuh's January 20 death and his brother Fayeq said he was killed by electrocution. Hamas has vowed to retaliate proclaiming Mabhuh a martyr.

“We hold Israel responsible for the assassination of our brother and leader” Hamas has said in a statement.

There was no immediate Israeli reaction to the accusation.

Born in Jabalia in 1960, Mabhuh was one of the founders of Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza Strip. Photo By Abed Rahim Khatib

By MARK LAVIEA BELGIAN politician has lodged an angry protest after the Israeli government intervened to prevent him from visiting Gaza.Development minister Charles Michel has insisted European officials must be able to visit the territory because they have aid projects there.

"This situation is unacceptable," Mr Michel said in a television interview yesterday.

Israel routinely bans foreign officials from crossing into Gaza, maintaining that such visits bolster the Islamic Hamas rulers of Gaza.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- An Israeli court has forced a Palestinian family out of their Jerusalem home. The home has been in the family for 80 years but the Israeli court decided that settlers 'own half the house'.

The court also fined the true owners of the house, Palestinian citizen Fatima Al-Dahoodi 5,000 US dollars, in addition to forcing her to pay 1,750 US dollars for alleged contempt charges. The court had threatened to jail Fatima in this latest episode in an on-going campaign of ethnic cleansing against Arabs in the city.

Zuhair al-Dahoodi, husband of Fatima, disclosed that the court asked them to surrender the key of the house after they become “no longer the only owners of the house”, and that the Israeli settlers have the full right to live in it.

“I and my family have been living in this house for 80 years now even before the coming of the Jewish settlers to our country, so I wonder how the house suddenly became owned by the settlers”, underlined the outraged Palestinian Jerusalemite.